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Sega Sammy Holdings has announced that is restructuring its businesses. The following changes have been announced:

The company has now divided itself into two businesses: Sega Holdings (which includes all of the entertainment businesses, including Sega’s main video game business) and Sega Live Creation (which includes the resort business)

Sega’s consumer gaming division will be known as Sega Games.

TMS Entertainment (known for Sonic X and Detective Conan (Cased Closed)), Marza Animation Planet, Sega Toys and Sammy Networks (a mobile brand) will all now become part of Sega Holdings.

Similiary, Sega has bought a domain for Sega Games (www.segagames.co.jp), while Sega’s western websites (North America/Europe/Australia) have been going under maintenance following this, with all western Sega websites being mirrored to a notice saying that the website is currently unavailable due to maintenance work with links to various Sega franchises, social network links, plus smaller links (such as Cookie Policy and UK and US Careers) below them.

On July 4, Steve Lycett began dropping hints on a new update for Sonic & All Stars Racing: Transformed. For PC users, the update was live and… ASRT was to get a new character, General Winter from Company of Heroes 2 from Relic Entertainment, a studio recently acquired by SEGA from the now-defunct THQ, following THQ’s bankruptcy,

Although later, some people have decided to complain, which has prompted S0L to announce that development on ASRT is still going ahead and that the character they got approval for a few months back is not General Winter and that the game will be reciving more DLC in the future.

At the Sonic Stadium Message Board (SSMB) and at SEGA’s forums, he said:

“no-one has said we’re done with the game. We’ve not forgot about the poll either. It’s not up to us who we add to the game, I’ve made this clear a number of times. […] I’ll leave you with one interesting tidbit. This isn’t the character I mentioned we’d got approval on either, that was definitely one of the poll topping ones.”

A gaming website told two SEGA executives in an interview about how SEGA was going and how it sees the console market right now. In that interview, they stated the future of the Sonic brand. The first answer to the interview (via The Sonic Stadium) said:

Ethan Einhorn: We’re taking, on the console side, more of a pillar approach. We’re doing some very exciting things with Sonic as a brand in the near future. We’re also very heavily focused on strategy, as you’ve seen with our pickup of [Company of Heroes developer] Relic, as well as what we’re doing with [Total War developer] Creative Assembly. Of course, we’re continuing to do core titles like Aliens: Colonial Marines.

The second answer, is the different demographics of two SEGA franchises, Sonic the Hedgehog and House of the Dead.

Evans: Absolutely. We have games that service all different types and sets of consumers. Some [intellectual properties] lend themselves to maybe a younger audience. Some IPs are more classic in their stance; some maybe appeal to a more mature audience. We have titles like House of the Dead. That’s probably an example of a mature game. Then Sonic, which has been kind of reinvented. We’re bringing that to the Android platform. That’s an example of something which might skew slightly younger, as well as have this more classic base.

Einhorn: Sonic Dash, which is popular right now on the top charts, is another great example of appealing to a more casual demographic. But again, within that same ecosystem we have Kingdom Conquest II, which is extremely core. Both of those comfortably coexist at the same publisher.

Then it talks about the Sonic franchise marketing and the oppontunities with 7-11 year old gamers, as well the ‘nostalgic’ older gamer.

Einhorn: I think what that creates for us with Sonic is a great opportunity. First and foremost, I am a father who grew up with the Sonic games. I was in high school when it came out. I have a 6-year-old now, and one of the great pleasures for me is to be able to share something I loved with my kids. So you have that father-child dynamic.

Kids also respond very strongly to Sonic on their own, without any parental support. I think part of that is that he’s like a superhero. He’s fast. He’s blue. He’s easy to understand. There’s a broad range, as you know, of people who love Sonic, but the age of 7 to 11 is absolutely the strongest in terms of loving Sonic. But then, as you said, we also have the older gamer who’s nostalgic, and that’s why we have products like Sonic Generations that are designed specifically for them. It gives us more opportunities to capitalize on the strengths of an iconic franchise.